>■■'■, "•J. ?.'''.< rTvi 



REMOTE STOl 





THE WISTARIA'S 



WAYS AND WANTS 



In landscape adornment, vines as well as shrubs and trees can often 

 he used to advantage — to the advantage of both gardener and grounds. 

 Vines increase the possibilities for variety and effectiveness in design, thus 

 adding to the trade 's opportunities. And few vines are more serviceable 

 in this way than the wistaria. 



O ONE viae, q^ qourse, will 

 answer ail the different 

 purposes £«piNI?hich vines 



' "^ be p'ossible, even, to find 



a vine that is perfectly 

 suited to any one purpose. 

 The commercially perfect 

 vine, or commercially per- 

 fect plant of any sort, 

 never yet has been obtained and prob- 

 ably never will be obtained, catalogues 

 to the contrary notwithstanding. All 

 normal products of nature, such as 

 plants, may be perfect in their own 

 way, but as soon as man begins to 

 adapt these natural products to artifi- 

 citflJ/'Conditions — then, in the words of 

 the, famous jingle, "nee- 

 dles and pins, his trouble 

 begins;" he begins his 

 ceaseless effort toward 

 what he calls improve- 

 ment, improvemettit that 

 ever leads onward to 

 greater improvement. In 

 plant raising, as in other 

 human undertakings, our 

 present best will generally 

 be followed by a future 

 better. Thus the world 

 "do move," and for that 

 let Providence be thanked! 

 So the wistaria, com- 

 mercially speaking, has 

 its defects as well as its 

 merits. Or, if the ad- 

 mirers of the wistaria 

 will not admit that it has 

 any defects, they will at 

 least acknowledge that it 

 has its limitations. 



About Its Name. 



The wistaria is more 

 than ordinarily beautiful. 

 It has a most unique and 

 distinctive sort of beau- 

 ty, and even the name 

 "wistaria" is pleasing 

 enough to accord well 

 with the grace and charm 

 of the plant. The name 

 is pretty enough to fit 

 the plant and that is 

 more than can be said of 

 hosts of other plant ap- 

 pellations. The word 

 "wistaria" has in it a 

 suggestion of music and 

 romance; it is such a 

 name as chimes .*vell ka. 

 song and s±oi^. "-' f^f 



Yet therte is nothing 



mysterious or romantic about the origin 

 of the name. The wistaria was so 

 called in honor of Caspar Wistar, who 

 was professor of anatomy in the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania about the be- 

 ginning of the nineteenth century. 

 When he was thus honored by having 

 the plant as a namesake, he had prob- 

 ably done something else to earn such 

 a distinction, besides simply bearing a 

 name that would sound well when 

 adopted for the vine, but even the 

 suitability of his name is of no slight 

 importance when one considers the un- 

 couthness of pie names which have 

 been inflicted bn many beautiful but 

 helpless and hapless flowers. 



The wistaria also has had other bo- 



The Wistaria on a Rochester Workman's Porch. 



35SCG3 



tanical names and it is still listed oc- 

 casionally as a glycin'e. Familiarly 

 it is sometimes called the kidney-bean 

 tree, the grape-flower vine, etc. But, 

 luckily, it is most frequently known as 

 the wistaria. 



Its Family RelationsMps. 



The wistaria belongs to the legu- 

 minosae, that immense order or family 

 whose members vary in size from the 

 slender, fragile sweet pea to the huge, 

 rugged coflPee tree, honey locust and 

 others. The ^ wistaria 's pea-shaped 

 flowers and pods are sufficiently sugges- 

 tive of its family connections. Though 

 there are both giants and dwarfs in the 

 leguminos8B family, the family resem- 

 blance is plainly visible 

 in nearly every individual, 

 whether huge or tiny. 



TJie defects — no, the 

 limitations — of the wista- 

 ria are less obvious than 

 its beauties and should 

 therefore be emphasized 

 To begin where the planf 

 negins, it is somewhat 

 <lifficult of propagation, 

 as cuttings of it do not 

 root readily unless the 

 conditions are exactly 

 right. It can be grown 

 from seeds, but with un- 

 certainty as to the char- 

 acter of the seedlings. A 

 •method sometimes em- 

 ployed instead of the us^ 

 of cuttings is to graft a 

 small shoot on a piece of 

 root, but an easier and 

 surer process is to layer 

 the young growing shoots. 

 However, as far as the 

 florist is concerned, a still 

 easier and more practical 

 method is to let the nur- 

 seryman do the propagat- 

 ing and all the attendant 

 worrying. Indeed, the 

 nurseryman is so accus- 

 tomed to the job that he \ 

 can dispense with most of 

 the worrying; for him 

 there is only enough dif- 

 ficulty in the operation to 

 make it interesting. 



Its Start in Life. 



It is advisable, then, 

 that the nurseryman start 

 the little wistarias into 

 life and keep them in his 

 possession until they are^ 



